The insurance cover I never had…

Many a time, people call into my radio and television insurance program, to complain about how unfair they were treated when they tried to access insurance claims. Until I had my own experience, I always thought to myself, “could these be some negligence from some of these insurance companies?”

It all started on the 4^th of July 2024 during the Edina Bakatue festival. Like I have done in the past eight (8) years, I lead my companies (Ahomka FM and Ocean 1tv) to organize two most important activities within the period. We were almost done with the Edina Bakatue community gala and we were about starting the Miss Bakatue on that fateful evening. During my errands in securing lights, sound and other logistics for the program, I had to use the school bus road on the University of Cape Coast campus. Just when I had descended a speed ramp, I heard a bang on my door and a shout of a male boy just closer to the right passenger side of my vehicle. The shout of the boy was as though I had passed on his legs or something. As confused as I was, I decided to check on him through my driving mirror whiles the car was still moving at a very slow pace (below 0 – 20 km).

Unfortunately, whiles I was doing that, a taxi driver had stopped right in-front of me, picking a passengers. All I could hear was “pang”, I run into his vehicle destroying his taillight. I got down from my vehicle only to realize that, the boy was only joking and that nothing had happened to him. I took the blame and decided to fix the taillight for the taxi driver so I could follow-up with my insurance company to retrieve my claims. I took pictures and other relevant details I thought could help. Again, I did all these because I couldn’t let this accident disrupt the program I had on that fateful evening, disappointing all the distinguished guests, traditional council, artists for the night, the contestants for the beauty pageantry and the community at large.

I paid for the taillight and paid for the spraying of the scratched section on taxi. Whiles doing all these, I made sure I took receipts from all these vendors so I could process my claim in peace. Two days after the program, I went to my insurance company to process my claim. I was then told by the manager that, I would need a police report to start with. I called the taxi driver who I run into, to accompany me to the police station for the report, upon reaching the police station and narrating the story, the police arrested us for not reporting the accident, the same day it happened. What!

Fortunately, I still had my phone with me whiles siting at counter back so I made some quick calls to secure intercessors. As if I had wronged him before, the inspector on duty started shouting on top of his voice, saying “you guys don’t respect the police, you think you can just come here for anything. You will see today, you are under arrest and I will make sure you face the law”. I was like eii, what is happening here?. Finally, after my intercessors stepped in and we were released. I then decided not to follow up again.

This experience of mine lightened up my insurance education path. The need to understand the dynamics of insurance, how to make claims among others. If I had adequate knowledge on what should be down during a car accident, I wouldn’t have stepped in the space of my insurance company.